When You Change Direction, Take the Team With You

A founder can change direction in a sentence. Everyone else needs to work out what that sentence changes.

Consider a product team halfway through a build. The founder spots a better opportunity and says, “Let's try this instead.” The new idea may be excellent. But the designer is still holding yesterday's brief. The engineer is protecting Friday's release. The project lead has already made commitments around both.

They leave the conversation with different versions of what happens next.

By Thursday, the founder is wondering why the team hasn't moved. The team is wondering which commitments still count.

The next leadership move is to make the reasoning and the consequences of the change visible enough for other people to act.

When you change direction, give the team a brief that moves with the work

When a change affects someone else's work, take five minutes to work through the following questions. Treat that as a starting point, not a limit on discussing a consequential change.

What changed our thinking?

Explain the observation behind the change. A customer finding, a failed test, a new technical possibility. Distinguish what you know from what you suspect. Then say whether you're proposing an idea, authorising an experiment or making a decision.

“I wonder whether we could…” and “We are changing the plan” create different obligations. Make the distinction explicit.

What do we need next?

Describe the next useful result and what it will help you learn or decide. Is this a rough prototype or something a customer should be able to use? Which standards remain fixed?

An experiment needs enough definition for people to know what they are testing. It doesn't need the certainty of a finished product.

What gives way?

Changing a priority means revisiting the work already promised. Name what might stop, shrink or move. Check that with the people carrying the commitments.

Ask: “What does this change break, and what am I missing?” Then give them time to answer. You may discover that the idea is sound but the proposed sequence is wrong.

Who decides the next step?

Name the owner, the decisions they can make and the limits they need to respect. Give them an escalation route for something beyond those limits.

This is a useful place for “I intend to…”, the practice described by L. David Marquet and shared in Matt Mochary's curriculum. The owner explains their intended action and reasoning, giving the leader a chance to identify missing context while the owner exercises judgment.

Ownership requires enough context, authority and support to carry the result.

Did we leave with the same understanding?

Try: “To check that I've explained it clearly, what are you taking away as the priority and your next step?”

Make this a check on your explanation. If their answer surprises you, you've found a gap while it is still inexpensive to resolve.

Write down the agreed version and when you'll review it.

The coaching happens in the response

The questions are simple. The difficult part may be hearing that your exciting new idea creates a problem for someone else.

Notice the temptation to solve their concern immediately, defend the idea or ask them to “just make it work”. There may be useful information underneath that concern. Ask for it.

The same applies when the owner proposes a route you wouldn't have chosen. Explore their reasoning. Distinguish a material risk from a difference in preference. Where a skill is missing, teach it or arrange support. Where authority is missing, clarify it.

That is where individual coaching can help: take one real interaction, examine what made it difficult, rehearse a different response and test it in the next conversation.

Make the change teach you something

After the experiment or milestone, revisit the brief. What did you expect? What happened? Which assumption changed? What should the next team know?

A useful ambition for antifragility is that the disruption leaves behind better judgment and a better way of working. That benefit has to be created through reflection and changed practice.

Try the brief on your next three changes of direction. Look for misunderstandings caught early, avoidable rework and decisions the owner could make with the context provided. Ask the people involved whether it helped. Keep what works and change what doesn't.

The measure is what the team can now understand and do together.

Further reading and attribution

• The Clarity Framework: the 5Cs, Alex Knight. This article applies that framework to changes of direction.
• Turn the Ship Around: “I intend to…”, Matt Mochary's summary of L. David Marquet's approach.
• Optimizing Post Mortems & Retros, Faith Meyer, in the Mochary Method curriculum.

The examples in this article are hypothetical. The combined practice is a proposed adaptation to test, not a promise of a particular result.

If you want a partner in the room while you practise this with your own team, that's the work I do. Book a Discovery Call